Jaysker12 wrote:Don't mean to speak for BB and others, but I think the larger point some posters are trying to get at is that our recruiting record against power conference schools in this class does not inspire hope for how we will fare against them in future classes. Without a top 50 recruit literally falling into our lap the '15 class would be quite underwhelming. We struck out on every recruit in this class that was evaluated at the highest level. I like what our coaches have done in terms of developing talent and meshing guys together into a unit, and I think they can continue to do so with under the radar guys to the point where we are competitive in conference play year in and year out, but IMO landing 4 year top 100 guys like Clarke and McQuaid is pivotal to our program taking that next step (think consistent SS and beyond)
I'm not sure you can make this case at all.
1. There are quite a few schools that skate under the radar a bit in terms of "top 50" HS recruits and do fine.
Let's take Gonzaga, for instance. Have you looked at how Rivals or ESPN ranks their classes? They do it by finding talent early, by getting high quality transfers and by getting overseas players. Iowa State does something similar with a heavy emphasis on transfers and JUCO's. Wisconsin would absolutely fail your criteria (this year's class #78 4-star, #131 3-star, and unranked 3-star) - only top 20 guy they've ever gotten was a home state kid that they identified early.. (Hmm, sound familiar?)
2. You ignore that two transfers that were recruited at the highest levels.. Watson and Huff. Not only were they recruited by some of the biggest programs out there (more highly recruited as a transfer than Frankamp by a long ways), they are already considered two of the best players on the team, even if they aren't eligible to play next year. These are IMO definitively top 50 recruits.. except better as they've already done it against D1 competition.
3. You also ignore the fact that the job the coaches have already done to put together a strong, young roster is what has allowed them to take some chances on some highly recruited guys that they had small odds of landing. Landing either McQuaid or Clark would have been nice, but there wouldn't have even been an effort if we didn't believe that we had to see the bar pretty high to add value to the team.
4. When recruiting at this level even the blue blood programs strike out. Teams offer a LOT of kids. They have a longer list and can go to an AAU tournament and draw on more guys to offer if people fall through, but that doesn't mean they automatically get a full and deep roster. Look at the Georgetown rosters of this year and last year. How many holes did they have despite their top 50 recruits? Look at this list of offers/signings from last year's Hoya class and those are just the ones ESPN knew about and probably not every offer that went out:
http://espn.go.com/colleges/basketball/ ... age/offerslook at this class to see how horribly it can go wrong.. .Haven't heard much of Domingo, Bolden and Hayes have we...?:
http://espn.go.com/colleges/basketball/ ... age/offers5. Given #4, I think it's impressive how hard our staff works to give us an advantage. Finding Patton was a two fold thing - they'd followed him since he was young, but they were also at the tournament in KC this spring (IIRC it was KC?) and knew he was blowing up. Nebraska, for instance, didn't have a coach at that tournament, even though it was local. Stewart blew up in Chicago, but then got hurt. Rather than waiting to see what happened, we got him to visit without an offer and then after seeing him play in scrimmage got him offered. I still don't have the full story on Martin, but if West Virginia and VA Tech wanted him, then it's good we didn't let him slip into the next signing period.. it appears that they really wanted to keep him as quiet as possible until signing day (Not letting them roll into the next signing period appears to have been a priority with the staff for all 3 of these kids)
6. There is a regional rankings bias in general. Kids from the midwest often need to market themselves in order to get highly ranked (note that McQuaid from texas had a father who was a coach and marketed him, for instance). Hanson didn't even get a scouting report on ESPN, despite offers from Zaga, Mizzou, Nebraska and AZ state.
We don't have the kind of name and rep where we can walk in and pull a bunch of top 50 kids from around the country. We have to pick our spots and find guys who fit our system while taking chances by swinging for the fences sometimes. We didn't get two of the big ones we targeted this year (really just one as they were in the same slot essentially), but we did swing for the fences with Huff and Watson and we landed them despite true blue-blood program competition. We've also been very aggressive in identifying talent early and getting them signed or getting them recruited to win despite the competition (Harrell, Hanson are great examples here) or in finding guys we love and keeping them quiet (Stewart and Martin). I don't see any reason why we can't be competitive year in and year out in conference with the kind of kids we are recruiting... I think people tend to overvalue the recruiting our competition is doing.. Look at Nova for instance (one top 50 guy in recent memory who wasn't a local kid and then James Bell back in 2010, but for the most part getting kids in the top 100 range with a few nonrated guys tossed in.. ).. Can we recruit at that level? I think we already are.
